Note: This week, as we flip the calendar page to 2019, I’ve asked Enolytics’ Chief Operating Officer to write about best practices for using data to achieve your yearly goals. True to form, being a COO and all, his thoughts went right to strategic planning for the fiscal year. Here are his thoughts, which are most relevant to colleagues whose roles are also operational in nature. But if you’re reading this, I’m sure you’ll be able to pull out what matters for you.

If your business’ fiscal year matches your calendar year, it’s the perfect opportunity to talk about strategic planning to meet your goals. Whether they’re financial goals (sales), operational goals (production and delivery) or human resources related goals (hiring or education), an action plan at this point is your best friend for the bottom line.

An action plan involves tracking your performance objectively. Here are a few questions to ask yourself, to start.

What are my Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)?

How do I create a scorecard?

How often should I look at it? Every quarter? Every month? In real time?

What are my comparison KPIs? Month to budget? Month to Previous Year Month? Rolling 12 month?

Let’s say that the number of cases you’re shipping is off somehow. It’s a good indicator, but how do you pinpoint the reason why that particular KPI is off? It could take you weeks to find the culprit, especially if you have hundreds or thousands of accounts you’re tracking. But you should be able to figure this out real time. When you identify underperforming accounts in real time, then you can create corrective action to turn them around quickly and effectively.

To be able to do that, a few things need to happen. We can help with each of these points.

Make the data clean and dependable.

Visualize your data.

Understand what it’s telling you.

Deliver the intelligence you need, when you need it.

Objective data will tell you if you’re reaching your company goals or not. If you aren’t reaching your goals, the data will tell you which areas require more focus.

A new year is a great opportunity to change things up a bit. If you haven’t been tracking your performance, I encourage you to start now. It’s the backbone of many successful enterprises.